Why did Vladimir Mayakovsky, the most famous bard of the Bolshevik Revolution, commit suicide? In 1940, this group of young people were passionately discussing the world’s destiny, the impending war, and the responsibilities of poets and intellectuals. They soon established themselves as the spearhead of their generation, just as Stalin’s great horror was annihilating their predecessors.

Why did Vladimir Mayakovsky commit suicide

Samoilov’s private diary detailed his dismay at the tragic arrests and executions. Some of the young poets’ classmates lost their parents during the purges and were tormented and isolated as “children of enemies of the people.” The young poets were presented with extremely unsettling questions. Why did Vladimir Mayakovsky, the most famous bard of the Bolshevik Revolution, commit suicide?

Why did the revolution from above produce starvation in the countryside and compel the implementation of rationing in cities? How could people who surrounded Lenin fall so low as to become, as their death sentences declared, fascist and Nazi accomplices against the USSR?

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed in 1939, linked the Soviet Union with the Third Reich. The Soviet Union then launched a war of naked imperialism against Finland. Despite these seeming discrepancies, Samoilov’s diary from his adolescent years portrays an inner battle to refashion his soul and prepare for the future struggle. Samoilov admired nineteenth-century Russian high culture, but, in keeping with the times, he attempted to reject its humanism.

He admired Lenin and Stalin, but worried he was not yet “up to standard” to join the Komsomol. Being a person of action and sacrifice entailed overcoming the “vagueness, nervousness, and hysteria” that characterized non-Soviet intellectuals. Growing up in the prewar intellectual milieu of Moscow’s districts, as well as learning about Russian culture and art from their instructors, made an indelible cultural impression on the group.

Oleg Troianovsky, another IFLI student (from 1938 to 1941) and future diplomat, recalls how, during official demonstrations on May Day or the anniversary of the October Revolution, his group of classmates would always shout out, at an agreed-upon spot, “Long live Boris Pasternak!”.

Pasternak had fallen out of favor with the authorities after being lambasted by the Soviet press several years prior. Students in Moscow wanted to adore both Russian literature and the Revolution, and they found no conflict in that. Above all, they remained captivated by their young radicalism. The youthful poets of IFLI and the Institute of Literature did not wish to remain on the sidelines of history.

They remained convinced that Stalin and his dictatorship were the sole revolutionary force of the period. Instead of doubting Stalin and the Soviet regime, the students in the organization hoped to help them. They saw the coming fight against Nazism as a battle between good and evil on a millenarian scale. There was no time for personal introspection and doubts.

In his diary, Samoilov writes that “others,” including skeptics and realists, “felt contempt for our passion and fervor.” In response, Samoilov wrote, “We disliked them.” From the fraternal environment of this society developed the most important Soviet lyrical “message of this generation,” the poem “Brigantine.” Kogan, the author, was a deeply amorous, passionate, strong-willed, and doctrinaire member of the circle.

He praised “fierce and unyielding” youthful revolutionary fighters who “spurned comfort and tranquillity” for sacrifice, adventure, and conflict. Kogan also composed a poem exhorting his generation to fight in every battle, “to reach the Ganges,” and “expand the motherland from England to Japan.”

The Nazi invasion and the Great Patriotic War appeared to justify the group’s beliefs, but it also provided them with unprecedented experience. Many boys from Moscow’s Arbat and other districts, as well as Leningrad, instantly offered to fight. Yesterday’s idealistic prophets shared the sobering and horrifying experience of military and social collapse in 1941-42, which included the sight of retreating troops, the rigidity and ineptitude of the Stalinist high command, German superiority in the skies and on the battlefield, and widespread panic in Moscow as the enemy approached.

They also witnessed a historic reversal in the course of the war, when the Soviet army halted the Germans at Stalingrad, as well as surging surges of patriotism in the army and throughout society. During the war, educated volunteers were inspired by the verse of elder poets and writers, such Ilya Ehrenburg, Konstantin Simonov, and Alexander Tvardovsky.

As young officers, they learned to see both the strengths and weaknesses of their soldiers, Russian muzhiks from collectivized villages, and to witness things for which, as the older poet Ilya Selvinsky put it, “a language is as yet not created”: Nazi concentration camps, ditches filled with Holocaust victims, scenes of senseless murder.

Finally, they took part in the conquering of Europe, which, particularly in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, demonstrated its magnificent material civilization and cultural richness despite the devastation caused by the war. They never imagined that they had taken part in the occupation of Eastern and Central Europe.

On the contrary, many felt as if they had been a part of a tremendous liberating force that brought about much-needed social and political improvements. Slutsky was one among those who helped distribute landed estates among peasants in Romania and Hungary, therefore renovating systems that had birthed Nazism and fascism, as well as organizing “people’s democracies.”

The victors’ pride was apparent. Nikolai Inozemtsev, an artillery intelligence sergeant and future director of the Institute for World Economy and International Relations in Moscow in the 1970s, wrote in his journal in July 1944 that “Russians are the most talented, gifted nation in the world, with boundless capacities.” Russia is the best country in the world, notwithstanding its flaws and deviations.”

On Victory Day, he wrote, “Our hearts are overflowing with pride and joy: ‘We Russians can do anything!'” It is now widely known throughout the world. And this is the best way to ensure our future security. In Europe, many Soviet leaders and soldiers failed to live up to their reputation as liberators.